Work Habits Are Valid Components of Evaluations of Anesthesia Residents Based on Faculty Anesthesiologists' Daily Written Comments about Residents

Abstract

Background: In our department, faculty anesthesiologists routinely evaluate the resident physicians with whom they worked in an operative setting the day before, providing numerical scores to questions. The faculty can also enter a written comment if so desired. Because residents' work habits are important to anesthesiology program directors, and work habits can improve with feedback, we hypothesized that faculty comments would include the theme of the anesthesia resident's work habits. Methods: We analyzed all 6692 faculty comments from January 1, 2011, to June 30, 2015. We quantified use of the theme of Dannefer et al.'s work habit scale, specifically the words and phrases in the scale, and synonyms to the words. Results: Approximately half (50.7% [lower 99.99% confidence limit, 48.4%]) of faculty comments contained the theme of work habits. Multiple sensitivity analyses were performed excluding individual faculty, residents, and words. The lower confidence limits for comments containing the theme were each >42.7%. Conclusions: Although faculty anesthesiologists completed (numerical) questions based on the American College of Graduate Medical Education competencies to evaluate residents, an important percentage of written comments included the theme of work habits. The implication is that the theme has validity as one component of the routine evaluation of anesthesia residents.